Black Sabbath seemingly played their final shows ever in February 2017, but guitarist Tony Iommi now says he’s “not opposed to” playing more gigs with his legendary metal band.
In a new interview with SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation”, Iommi expressed a bit of regret in ending Sabbath’s touring career. “It was great to be able to go out and do a final tour,” said the guitar icon. “To be honest, I felt a bit bad [about] it, because it was basically my choice, my fault, because touring, for me, at that extent wasn’t a good thing physically.”
Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2012, but revealed he was in remission in 2016. He added, “To get in at four o’clock in the morning from doing a gig … you’re living a life like I used to when I was 20 … It was just difficult, and my doctor said to me to try and calm it down a bit. And it just seemed like the right thing to do at that time.”
When asked by host Eddie Trunk about the possibility of playing a one-off show with Sabbath, Iommi took his interest even further. “I think that it would be good, if we could do [a one-off show],” responded the metal godfather. “The hard thing is, certainly with Sabbath, because it’s such a big thing, you can’t just do an occasional show, because of the crew, and you have the whole setup. It would have to be a year or an 18-month tour… I’m not opposed to doing anything; I just would do it in a different way.”
Another motivation for Sabbath would be including founding drummer Bill Ward, who didn’t perform on the final tour due to contractual issues and reported physical limitations. Last year, singer Ozzy Osbourne said he’d love to play “one last gig” with Ward.
Iommi, who’s been working on new music, also said in the interview that he’d likely be collaborating with Ronnie James Dio if the latter was still alive. Dio fronted Sabbath in the early ’80s after Ozzy was kicked out of the band, and reunited with his Sabbath bandmates in 2006 as the outfit Heaven & Hell.
“After the Ronnie thing, I really loved that period, back with Dio, we were really cracking on with that band, and it was a great band,” explained Iommi. “And then we’d done the Sabbath thing with Ozz, which was great, to finish up. But I should think if Ronnie was alive, I’d probably be doing something with him now.”
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As of now, the entire concert industry is on hold due to the pandemic, so if Sabbath were to reunite once more, it wouldn’t be for a while. On top of that, Ozzy has his own health woes, as he is battling Parkinson’s disease and still recovering from a nasty fall that occurred last year. The singer already has multiple solo tour legs to make up after canceling shows the past two years.
Listen to Tony Iommi’s interview on “Trunk Nation’ in the player below.
